A mediterranean pantheon: Cults and deities in hellenistic and roman Ashkelon

Greco-Roman Ashkelon, being an impotant city on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean, had a mixed pantheon of deities and cults. The purpose of this paper is to collect and describe the variegated evidence for these cults, and to try and trace their origins and possible outside influences. Three main spheres of influence can be discerned: the Phoenician — Ashkelon having close demographic and political ties with Tyre since the early Persian period; the influence of the ‘ordinary’ Greek cults; and that of Egyptian deities — the city having close relations with the Ptolemies and being adjacent to Egypt.